I read the poem. It was the tenderest and saddest little cry from a heart that ached and starved for an ideal love; and good as the manner seemed, the matter itself it was that chiefly moved me. At my admission of its moving quality her white hand closed over mine as it had done that day in the library when we had read of “Isabetta and the Pot of Basil.” Her hand was warm, but not warm enough to burn me as it did. “Ah, thanks, Agostino,” she murmured. “Your praise is sweet to me. The verses are my own.” I was dumbfounded at this fresh and more intimate glimpse of her. The beauty of her body was there for all to see and worship; but here was my first glimpse of the rare beauties of her mind. In what words I should have answered her I do not know, for at that moment we suffered an interruption. Sudden and harsh as the crackling of a twig came from behind us the voice of Messer Fifanti. “What do you read?” We started apart, and turned. Either he, of set purpose, had crept up behind us so softly that we should not suspect his approach, or else so engrossed were we that our ears had been deafened for the time. He stood there now in his untidy gown of black, and there was a leer of mockery on his long, white face. Slowly he put a lean arm between us, and took the sheet in his bony claw. He peered at it very closely, being without glasses, and screwed his eyes up until they all but disappeared. Thus he stood, and slowly read, whilst I looked on a trifle uneasy, and Giuliana's face wore an odd look of fear, her bosom heaving unsteadily in its russet sheath. He sniffed contemptuously when he had read, and looked at me. “Have I not bidden you leave the vulgarities of dialect to the vulgar?” quoth he. “Is there not enough written for you in Latin, that you must be wasting your time and perverting your senses with such poor illiterate gibberish as this? And what is it that you have there?” He took the book. “Panormitano!” he roared. “Now, there's a fitting author for a saint in embryo! There's a fine preparation for the cloister!” He turned to Giuliana. He put forward his hand and touched her bare shoulder with his hideous forefinger. She cringed under the touch as if it were barbed. “There is not the need that you should render yourself his preceptress,” he said, with his deadly smile. “I do not,” she replied indignantly. “Agostino has a taste for letters, and...” “Tcha! Tcha!” he interrupted, tapping her shoulder sharply. “I had no thought for letters. There is my Lord Gambara, and there is Messer Cosimo d'Anguissola, and there is Messer Caro. There is even Pordenone, the painter.” His lips writhed over their names. “You have friends enough, I think. Leave, then, Ser Agostino here. Do not dispute him with God to whom he has been vowed.” She rose in a fine anger, and stood quivering there, magnificently tall, and Juno, I imagined, must have looked to the poets as she looked then to me. “This is too much!” she cried.